Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe by Voddie Baucham. Washington, D. C.: Salem Books. xvii, 254 pp. $24.99.
“For such a time as this” (Esth 4:14). Tensions have been mounting over questions of race and social justice. Marxist ideologies in the evangelical church cause it to stagger under an onslaught of cultural crises that threaten to undue the work of God today. Some Americans consider all whites to be racists because of the simple fact of their birth. They allege that racism permeates our culture, and whites are expected to own this reality, beg for forgiveness, regardless of any personal, overt acts and to support reparations for wrongs long ago perpetrated. Persons of color, it is said, are hunted by the police, who as a group are out of control and desperately need to be reined in or defunded altogether. Sadly, they conclude, the church, at least the white church, has been complicit in this legacy. It is a part of the problem, not the solution.
These are stunning accusations that, if true, need to be taken seriously. Many of these charges cannot be ignored. However, things get complicated when a white person objects to any of these indictments. Any objection is said to show the extent of the problem. But this makes the accusations unfalsifiable. To reject them at any level is to prove their veracity.
Not so fast, says Voddie Baucham, an American man of color—“I am not an African. I am not an African American. I am an American, and I wouldn’t want to be anything else” (229). Raised in an impoverished, single-parent home, a descendant of slaves whose ancestors were sold into slavery not by white slave traders but by fellow Africans (37), he moved from Texas to Los Angeles and grew up during the era of desegregation. He experienced forced bussing, drugs, crime, and gangs. Baucham suffered many Jim Crow era abuses hurdled upon individuals of color. But he turned his life over to Christ and has become a strong voice for reformed orthodoxy and an outspoken critic of our cultural crisis. In Fault Lines, Baucham offers an in-depth and well researched response to some of these cultural legacies and challenges, especially Critical Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality. This is very personal for him. He is very informed as he points out the origin of CRT—Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and a conference in 1989, where Intersectionality was also introduced by Bell protégé, Kimberlié Crenshaw (xvii), setting the stage for his discussion.
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and seminary at Southwestern Baptist of Fort Worth, Baucham shares his own personal journey to faith and to his rejection of the notion of systemic racism in America (chap. 2) so that the reader may understand his perspective. This is not theoretical and academic for him. This is his lived experience. All things must be brought to the Scripture for analysis and judgment. He looks at current issues pressing the church both historically and with an eye to the Scripture.
Baucham’s starts with biblical principles that condemn falsehoods (e.g., the Ninth Commandment) and false narratives (chap 3). Using current data, he shows that many of the common public stories (Trayvon Martin, Breanna Taylor, Philando Castile, etc.) are simply false and meant to enrage rather than inform. An examination of Fatal Officer Involved Shootings (FOIS) shows that “it is white people who are actually shot at disproportionately high rates” rather than persons of color (49). Of course, persons of color also experience FOIS, but the data does not support the common narrative that they are “hunted” or that the police are racist.
It is claimed that America is racist to its core. And what is the solution to racism? One cannot simply say they are “not racist” as this is a racist trope. One must be “antiracist.” Baucham considers the thought of Ibraham X. Kendi and antiracism which he labels a “new religion” and “cult” (chap. 4). “In classic cult fashion, they borrow from the familiar and accepted, then infuse it with new meaning” (66). This new cult needs a priesthood, which includes “all oppressed minorities (people of color, women, LGBTQIA+, non-citizens, the disabled, the obese, the poor, non-Christians, and anyone else with an oppressed status” (91). “Ethnic Gnosticism,” “special knowledge based solely on ethnicity” (92), where “white people cannot ‘see’ without black voices” (98) must be rejected. The antidote for this is Scripture. Citing Romans 3, he argues that the biblical picture is that all humans are sinful, not just white men but all men.
Baucham critiques prominent evangelicals where they get things wrong (e.g., David Platt [121ff]). He discusses CRT and intersectionality and demonstrates why, contra Resolution 9 of the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention, “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” these are not and cannot be considered “analytical tools” useful for Christians to understand the world today. He engages the prominent black evangelical voices including Curtis Woods, Jarvis Williams, Jemar Tisby, and others. Both black and white Christians are complicit in promoting false ideologies in evangelicalism.
The problems in the black community cannot be laid at the feet of systemic racism. He shows how the historic black pulpit has spoken out against some of the problems. “The internet is filled with clips of black pastors getting standing ovations as they passionately admonish their young members to ‘pull up your pants, get an education, stop dropping babies all over the place, learn to speak proper English, get all that gold out of your mouth’” (157). He takes on abortion in the black community, “the unspoken epidemic,” discussing the infamous case of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist jailed for killing live birth babies and Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood and its “unreported genocide”—the Negro Project whose goal was to reduce the black population through birth control (173).
For Baucham, “this book is…a plea to the Church. I believe we are being duped by an ideology bent on our demise…. We cannot embrace, modify, baptize, or Christianize these ideologies. We must identify, resist and reject them” (204). CRT, CSJ, Intersectionality “and their antecedents” are “cosmic powers over this present darkness” (209). The church must pursue God’s work God’s way. “Our war is spiritual” (209). “Our weapons are spiritual” (210). “We fight with the truth of biblical justice” (211). Included is a brief critique of Black Lives Matter (217ff).
This is a remarkable book from an important scholar who is trying to set the record straight so that the church will respond to the current crises in a biblical fashion. It deserves a careful read and deep reflection. May God use Fault Lines to warn his church. Soli Deo Gloria.
